Does Religion Influence Judges In Their Decision Making?

Identifying Justice Decision-Making:
The Influences of Religion in Law
Abstract
This study determined if there is a significant relationship between religion and the decision-making duty of the judges and justices, particularly the Supreme Court. The researcher gathered all credible and reliable sources to establish first the relationship between religion and law, and thereafter, the relationship between religion and decision-making. Furthermore, the researcher went to study if there are other external factors affecting the way judges and justices make their decisions. An in-depth analysis of questionable appellate court decisions was made, as well as an in-depth analysis of the depositions and claims in some cases. In addition, civil liability cases were also included and investigated to support the researcher’s hypothesis that religion is in fact a main contributing factor when judges and justices make their decisions. After the analysis, the results showed that there is indeed a positive relationship between the two, which further strengthened the hypothesis.
Introduction
Religion and law are two of the most famous interdisciplinary studies that are commonly associated with each other. A lot of researches have already been done to see if religion indeed affects the law, particularly the way judges and justices decide on their cases. Some scholars suggest that probably, sometimes, the religion of a judge directly affects his decision-making when it comes to cases involving moral turpitude and grave abuse of human rights. While it may be true that there is the doctrine of separation of the State and the Church, there is still that so called ‘relation’ between religion and the law.
Most philosophers say that the foundations of law are based on religion. Relatively, religion is actually considered as one of the sources of human rights. Natural law, being the basis of religion, is also where law rooted from. Furthermore, aside from religion being a source of human right, it is also regarded to as the main foundation for the traditions of law, in general. Therefore, with these established facts, we can actually conclude that there is a big possibility that religion, in fact, affects the judges’ way of thinking in terms of determination of judgment. Since as of today, there are a lot of conflicts in between religion and human rights, judges are probably also having dilemmas as to whether or not to follow their religious instincts or to strictly adhere to the provisions of law.
Ideally, judges are supposed to be neutral when it comes to decision making, most specially the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, for they are the higher courts rendering almost all final judgments. Cases involving moral turpitude such as murder, homicide, rape, and other heinous crimes are usually in connection with a violation of human right; hence, it suffices to say that these cases should be decided objectively based on law, notwithstanding any other factors involved such as religion or cultural beliefs.
It is definitely an indubitable fact that the role of judges in the judiciary system is a vital one; therefore, it is a very important duty for them to render impartial judgments independent from all other ext...